


Not Alone

by Darceygemie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/M, I guess this is also a, but Ben's a ghost, so its a bit of a one sided roommate situation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darceygemie/pseuds/Darceygemie
Summary: It takes an overworked Rey five months to start to piece together the strange things that have been occurring in her new apartment- but a floating phone is rather hard to ignore.Ben has no memory of what his life was before he woke up in this apartment- unable to leave and seemingly invisible. His new life is lonely and monotonous, until a strange bubbly girl moves in with her oversized cat and fills his world with pot plants, nineties pop music and her infectious smiles.It doesn't take long for him to fall for her.





	1. already invisible

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to @titillatingburlap for betaing this chapter for me!

 

 

 

_when i grow up, i'd_

_like to be a ghost_

_i'm already invisible_

_to everyone_

_so i think i'm_

_halfway there_

-ghost wishes, CR

 

 

Rey moved into her West Brooklyn apartment almost five months ago, and since then strange things had been occurring.

She’d been much too busy to pay any attention to them at first, trying to catch up with the workload at her new job with tech giants First Order. They wanted Rey and her team of engineers (but mostly Rey, seeing as the rest of them didn’t seem to understand the first thing about electrical engineering) to work out how to fit a camera three times too big into a smaller phone within the month. Looking back now, Rey thought there were quite a few strange occurrences that she’d originally decided were just slips of her overworked mind.

First, it was only little things; her large collection of plants always seemed to be watered, her cat BB’s bowl never seemed to be empty even though she knew he had been eating since he was starting to take on a rather spherical shape, and her laptop was always charged the next morning despite the fact that she knew she did not connect it the night before. Then there was the time when she had left her keys in the door lock in her hurry to get inside to make sure her oven was off. When she turned around, the keys were on the kitchen counter as if they had always been there.

And now there was this.

Rey picked up the prototype phone off the counter and turned it over, inspecting it for the damage she knew wasn't there.

She’d been in a hurry when her bag knocked over the latest and only working prototype of the newest First Order phone model XI –the one she’d been working on for the last three weeks and was finally going to present to the higher-ups today. The phone hurtled over her kitchen counter towards her granite floor.

She dove for it, just in time for her to be eye level with the phone when it should have made impact, but instead hovered for a few seconds before gently touching the ground, completely unharmed.

So now here she is, thirty minutes later, alternating between staring at the thing and turning it over and over in her hands, looking for answers. Even though she knew she wouldn’t find any –there was no logical reason for a phone to float. No science nor added hardware could have allowed the prototype to cushion itself before impact with a hard surface.

_I should know… I helped design the thing._

Rey turned the phone over again, briefly allowing herself to contemplate the mechanics of adding a free-fall detector or some kind of high power air blaster which could stop a collision with a hard surface, before promptly dropping the idea. It would be impossible to fit such hardware into such a small and sleek device.

But even so, the alternative –a non-scientific solution- was unthinkable.

A loud generic ringtone cut through the silence, making Rey jump. Careful not to drop the prototype again, she placed it as delicately as she could in the center of the counter and riffled in her bag for her actual phone.

As expected, it was Mitaka, her equally overtaxed team-leader, calling. One glance at the time told her why. Sighing, she accepted the call, already starting to pack the prototype phone back into its protective case.

Which is where it should have been, to begin with.

"Rey, where are you? The meeting starts in ten minutes and you have the only working prototype."

Mitaka sounded both out of breath and out of patience. Rey knew how much stress her team-leader was under by the company execs- especially from Mr. Hux who liked to walk into their lab and stand over them for hours at a time, making sure they were meeting the strict deadlines he set as though he had nothing better to do.

Before working for First Order tech, Rey worked for several small start-ups, all of which had been friendly and inviting, with supportive bosses and a modern, collaborative outlook on work. In fact, the last company she worked for, Farseekers, helped train her up from an engineering technician to her current title; electrical engineer. In the long term, it hadn’t paid off for Farseekers- the company had folded only a year after hiring her.

After Farseekers had gone under, the majority of her co-workers (and her closest friends) were scouted by First Order tech’s rival- the Resistance. The Resistance’s bright open workspaces and unconventional work ethos were legendary- and not just amongst those who worked in tech either. Resistance workers could ride space hoppers to meetings, enjoy access to exclusive events, receive the best health insurance, and –most importantly - take pride in knowing that the work they did had a positive impact on the world- all  housed in a gleaming glass Mecca to technology situated on Fifth Avenue.

Since Rey had been old enough to take a radio apart and successfully put it back together (she’d been six at the time) she’d dreamed of working for the Resistance.

She'd desperately wanted to follow her friends Poe, Jessika, and Rose in joining the Resistance but she hadn’t gotten past the first round of interviews. By the time First Order tech called, she was one month behind on rent and out of options.

The First Order had a reputation for beating the life and soul out of their workers by imposing strict, nearly impossible deadlines. They encouraged backstabbing by rewarding individual ingenuity above teamwork and fired anyone who slipped up. The higher-ups also had a disturbing habit of referring to employees by a series of numbers instead of by name. At first Rey had suspected this was because it was admittedly hard, even for her, to keep track of the never-ending cycle of new workers, but now she knew it was to keep socialization between co-workers at a minimum. First Order tech went out of their way to make their work environment hostile.

…but they were offering Rey twice what she had been making at Farseekers, so she signed the contract.

_And sold my soul to the devil._

She’d been with them for almost nine months and the only thing keeping her from quitting was the promise of a bonus if she could figure out this camera conundrum. Once the higher-ups approve her design and it goes into mass production, she could quit. Rey had calculated that she would only have to stay with the First Order for about a month another month before she could hand in her notice. Once she collected her bonus, she would be free.

_Well, at least that salary increase allowed me to move out of that flat share situation… even if my apartment does turn out to be haunted, it’s still better than anywhere I’ve lived before._

With that thought, Rey snapped out of her trance. One month to go.

"I know, I know, I totally lost track of time. Try and stall them. I’ll be there in twenty."

"REY, we don't have twenty minutes to spare-"

But Rey had already hung up, picked up the box and placed it carefully in her bag before padding it with a scarf. There would be no more accidents today, not on her watch.

With one last look around the apartment, she picked up her keys and walked out the door.

 

This mystery, whatever it was, could wait a little longer.

 

 

***

 

 

Ben watched as she picked up the prototype box and surveyed the room before hurrying out the door.

He wondered if he had gone too far this time.

She moved in four and a half months ago and he’d been trying to help her in small ways, but he’d never shown himself to her the way he had this morning. Not that she’d actually seen him (seeing as no one could) but he knew she definitely noticed the way her device hovered mid-air before sinking softly to the floor. The girl had stared at the thing as if it might grow legs for an alarming amount of time.

Ben couldn’t remember much of who he’d been before he turned up in this apartment. He mostly just recalled his name and a vague recollection of a bright light, some concerned voices, and then nothingness.

At first, the apartment was full of stuff, most of which seemed somewhat familiar to him, and he spent several days rummaging through things to see if anything jogged his memory. Though nothing triggered any real flashbacks, he was able to piece bits together. Assuming this stuff was his, he deduced that he liked 90’s alternative rock music, he didn’t own any real cooking utensils, he housed a very large collection of take-out menus, and he seemed to live alone.

The apartment was kept meticulously tidy to the point where Ben wondered if he even lived here before… whatever happened to him happened, but one room- the one Ben had dubbed ‘the workshop’- was confusing in its contrast to the rest of the apartment.

Every surface of the workshop was covered in soldering irons, wires, tools and seemingly endless pieces of paper depicting some sort of diagrams or drawings Ben no longer understood.

Eventually, an emotional woman who Ben believed to be his mother came along and boxed the stuff up, taking it all away. He wasn’t sure how long ago that was; he had no sense of time at all before Rey altered his existence by moving in and hanging a novelty cat calendar on the kitchen wall, finally giving him a sense of time.

And that wasn’t the only way she altered his existence.

From day one, he was bewitched.

Everything about her was perfect. From the way she danced around the apartment late at night to 90’s music, the way she scrunched up her nose when she was concentrating, the way she came home with a new houseplant every week determined to turn the small apartment into a greenhouse, to the way she would hum happy nonsensical tunes while going through her daily routine.

She was beautiful too, with her freckles and her smile and the unique three-bun hairstyle she favored for keeping loose strands out of her face. She didn’t smile too often, but when she did, it was thanks to BB’s regular antics. That cat had far too much energy for something that mostly resembled an orange ball.

Ben made sure to keep BB’s bowl topped up to thank him for being the main source of Rey’s happiness.

She wasn’t always happy. Nights were the worst.

Some nights, Rey would toss and turn and cry in her sleep.

Ben could never be sure what was plaguing her dreams, but he was certain it wasn’t just nightmares. Sometimes, he would try and touch her to wake her up, and his hand would slip straight through, reminding him he had his own issues.

With the most important one being-

 

he was dead.


	2. stay, illusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to @titillatingburlap for betaing! Also for getting it back to me on such short notice!

 

__

 

_But, soft: behold! lo where it comes again!_

_I'll cross it, though it blast me. - Stay, illusion!_

_If thou hast any sound, or use a voice._

**_Speak to me._ **

 

-Hamlet, Shakespeare

 

Today of all days, Rey hoped she didn't actually have a personal FBI agent looking over her search history because if she did, her anonymous agent would have raised eyebrows for sure.

**how to find out if your apartment is haunted?**

**how to talk to a ghost?**

**how to conduct a séance?**

**what to say to a ghost?**

**how to find out if a ghost is friendly?**

And then about an hour later she searched-

**how real can hallucinations seem?**

 

But the flood of results on that query made it too terrifying to contemplate. No, she would rule out all possible and plausible options before having to seek medical attention. Even if that ‘plausible’ option was a ghost living in her apartment.

 

Most search results advised using an Ouija board, but she had seen enough horror movies to know that that wasn’t a good idea… especially now that she was warming up to the possibility of otherworldly spirits. The internet recommended lighting candles and burning some dried sage in order to cleanse the air. Her apartment cleansing would have to be content with the random array of herbs at the back of her cupboard.

 

The only candle she could find was a banana bread scented Yankee candle that Rose had bought her as a moving in present. She wasn’t sure if this would suffice. The séance sites recommended an amalgam of candles to soothe the spirit but she wasn't made of money, and hopefully, the ghost would appreciate the effort regardless. And if it didn’t appreciate her due efforts, Rey convinced herself that she wouldn’t be interested in meeting candle snob spirits anyways. She categorically refuses to spend her money on half a dozen white-pillar candles.

 

_What am I even thinking? I am actually losing it. I should call Rose before I get in too deep._

Even as the thought crossed her mind, she immediately dismissed the idea. She loves Rose, and, out of all of her friends, Rose would most likely listen and try to understand. However, that did not mean she would not think Rey was going crazy. She would probably justify it by saying that Rey was being overworked at First Order and was sleep deprived (which was true). But Rey was convinced she had _seen_ that phone float this morning, and she was determined to get to the bottom of this before accepting that she might need medical help.

 

She really hoped she didn’t need medical help.

 

There was also a chance Rose would ask Rey how her presentation had gone, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about it yet. She had turned up just in time to hear a smirking Hux delighting in telling Mitaka that Mr. Snoke, the CEO of First Order tech, wanted to go in a different direction with the new model.

 

Now, instead of just including an advanced camera, they wanted to add several new and totally unheard of features to try to beat the Resistance’s newly announced and virtually indestructible phone, which was hitting the market in a few months. In a nutshell, that bonus that Rey was desperately grasping at just yesterday was gone until she could figure out how to make a phone ‘ _flexible’._

 

It wasn’t hard sneaking away earlier than usual after that disaster of a meeting. Mitaka had gone missing around lunchtime, probably to eat an unhealthy amount of ice cream. Rey wished Mitaka would just quit. This job clearly wasn’t good for his mental health.

 

But who was she to talk? She was about to try to communicate with a ghost.

 

Rey lit the candle and took a deep breath.

 

The WikiHow page on how best to communicate with ghosts (complete with some dubious illustrations) recommends starting with a question asking if there were any benevolent spirits present, but that seemed too stuffy to be a real conversation starter- this spirit had been watering her plants and charging her laptop, so it seemed unlikely that it was planning on harming her. Instead, she went with-

 

‘Is there anyone in the room with me?’

 

…

 

Silence.

 

Rey sighed. She didn’t want to try out the ‘ghost revealing spell' one website had promised was foolproof, but she'd already gone this far.

 

‘Spirit show yourself, spirit reveal, spirit come to me so I know that you are real’

 

She repeated the chant several times waving both hands over the candle in what she hoped was a witchy manner. Not that she really knew what being witch-like entailed. Her only point of reference to the occult was the TV show Charmed. Rey hoped she was being adequately accurate.

 

…

 

Silence again.

 

_What was I thinking? I should get some air and clear my mind for a bit and then come back and forget this ever happened._

As she turned towards the counter and ducked to blow out the candle, a flicker of movement caught the corner of her eye. A book she had left on her coffee table was now floating midair, pages flipping back and forth.

 

She screamed.

 

***

 

He hadn’t meant to make her scream.

 

Ben had spent the majority of the day wondering if he had fucked things up earlier with the levitating phone. He came to the conclusion that he probably had.

 

He felt this theory was mostly justified when Rey came home over three hours early, ignored the meowing BB-8 and went rifling in the back of a cupboard Ben had never seen her use before.

 

 

Over the last five months of living with Rey, Ben had learned that she was nothing if not a creature of habit. Her alarm went off at seven o’clock daily, and she would continue snoozing it every ten minutes until Rey would finally stop hitting the snooze button at precisely seven forty. She was always bleary-eyed in the morning and would quite often trip over BB-8, who liked to weave between Rey's legs in her morning quest for food.

 

After BB-8 was fed, Rey would shower and get ready. During the week, she mostly wore black slacks and a white blouse. Rey was normally always running late. Ben had surmised this from the rushing and the under the breath cursing. She’d grab a breakfast bar or a banana and then she’d been gone.

 

Then from eight thirty till seven forty, it was just Ben and BB-8.

 

When she came home she would change into pajamas, eat take out, and read.

 

She read a lot.

 

She had books on every available surface in the apartment- all of them were tattered and browned. At first, Ben had thought she’d inherited them from somewhere, but he soon realized that the collection was still ever growing. Rey must have been buying them from secondhand bookshops.

 

She seemed to be capable of reading as many as ten books at once. She liked to pick up whatever was closest to her and firmly lose herself in the literature. She read everything; fiction, non-fiction, historical, modern, thrillers and she even had a collection of rather tawdry bodice rippers.

 

Ben loved watching Rey read- he found the intense look of concentration on her face extremely endearing. She also had a way of lying around the apartment in the oddest places and positions, as though her desire to read was greater than her need for comfort.

 

Even though it was hard for him to admit, Ben loved watching Rey read the cheap romance books most of all. She would blush, bite her lip, and, if the book was particularly risqué, Rey would throw her head back and let out breathy little moans as her eyes darkened in deep concentration. These moments seemed oddly personal and Ben always forced himself to turn his back to give her some privacy, even though he wanted nothing more than to watch her mewl in excited anticipation.

 

That was one thing he was very strict on; giving Rey her privacy. He only ever entered her room when he could sense her distress. There had been a few times he had to avert his eyes and retreat rather quickly after Rey walked into the living area in a state of undress- after all, she did believe she lived alone. Ben made sure he never crossed that line. He wouldn’t do that to her.

 

Whether or not Ben could continue watching Rey read was becoming less of a concern recently. She had been coming home later and later, overworked and overtired, with no energy to read at all.

 

Luckily, Ben still had weekends- and weekends were definitely Ben’s favorite time of the week.

 

On weekends, Rey would sleep in until around ten thirty and then wake up, humming to herself, as she got ready for the day. On the weekend, Rey was a riot of color, wearing odd bright sundresses when it had been warmer, and now in the colder weather, she favored thick multi-colored sweaters with skirts and patterned tights.

 

They never matched, but Rey didn’t seem to care. Neither did Ben. She was a lot happier on the weekends, and Ben suspected having the freedom to choose her own clothes was part of her pleasure. And he always liked to see what combination she would wear next.

 

But the best things about weekends was breakfast.

 

On weekends, without fail, Rey would cook breakfast. She liked to try and cook something new every time which had led to some interesting combinations including one failed attempt at sausage pancakes, but her enthusiasm and curiosity was a wonder to behold.

 

And as she cooked she would sing. Always happy songs and always at the top of her lungs.

 

She was mesmerizing.

 

***

 

And now she was talking to him.

 

At first, Ben didn’t know how to react.

 

When he had first realized he was stuck in the apartment he had ran his voice raw from shouting for help.

 

He had tried again when the weeping woman had come, starting off in whispers and ending in screams. She hadn’t heard him at all.

 

He had even tried talking to Rey in the early days. He liked to answer to one-sided conversations she had with BB-8. He liked to pretend that they were a real couple who talked about the weather and how each other’s day had been. He liked to pretend he wasn’t dead.

 

He had made some progress since waking up in this apartment. In the beginning, he was unable to touch anything at all. Trying to grab objects would make him feel disorientated and dizzy. Over time, he regained the ability to feel objects again, and then eventually the ability to move them. Doing so used up a lot of his energy.

 

The slow progress allowed Ben to hope that one day he would regain his voice, but there have been no signs of that yet.

 

How was he supposed to respond?

 

He looked around the room for _something_ to indicate that he was here, in a non-threatening ‘hello-I’m-a-ghost-who-doesn’t-want-to-hurt-you’ kind of way.

 

When he turned around to look at her, Rey was flapping her hands in some kind of fanning motion over the candle flame and was reciting a strange sounding chant.

 

_What is she doing?_

 

He locked eyes on a book Rey left on the coffee table, sporting a garishly bright cover with an oversized man ripping off his too tight shirt, and picked it up. He flipped the pages in a fanning motion, hoping to catch her attention- the best imitation of a wave he was able to conger.

 

She looked up.

 

She screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay this week guys, I've had a busy week (two deadlines! I'm so glad thats over) so we should be on track for Saturday updates from now onwards. 
> 
> So, we have contact! Tbh Rey is handling this all pretty well, I'm not sure I would be coming back after seeing my phone floating.
> 
> Also I have a tumblr now! I'm @ghostly-reylo if anyone wants to follow me there.
> 
> Happy Easter and passover to all those who celebrate!


	3. palely loitering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and we have contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to my beta @vnpmeh who helped me salvage this chapter!

 

 

 

_And this is why I sojourn here,_

_Alone and palely loitering,_

_Though the sedge is withered from the lake,_

_And no birds sing._

 

\- La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Christina Rossetti

 

 

*** 

 

 

Despite all her preparation, Rey hadn’t _actually_ believed she would be observing anymore paranormal activity anytime soon.

 

Even after everything she’d done today; all the research, all the planning… she never expected tangible evidence. She certainly had never expected floating books (though, thinking about it, maybe as a general life rule, no one ever expects floating books).

 

Not that she couldn’t tell you what it was she _had_ been expecting- probably more along the lines of a doctors note for exhaustion and some time off work.

 

Whatever she was expecting, it certainly was not this.

 

It was floating. It was definitely _floating._

 

There were no two ways about it. The pages were fanning back and forth in a mockery of a wave.

 

Rey’s scream stopped abruptly leading to an awkward silence that filled the room. It turned out it was pretty damn uncomfortable to transition between screaming your head off and standing staring in awe at the levitating object in front of her, but at this point Rey was beyond caring, it wasn’t as though the whole situation wasn’t absurd anyway, and it also wasn’t as though there was really anything to be scared of. This _thing_ had been watering her plants for the last five months after all, she was pretty sure if they wanted to hurt her they’d had plenty of time to have a go.

 

With this in mind, and Rey’s British upbringing demanding that she be polite and welcome her guest- no matter if that guest was undead or not- she took a step forward.

 

The fanning movement stopped mid-motion, but the book continued to float at about shoulder height, bobbing slightly up and down as though it was being offered to her by some invisible outstretched hand.

 

She hesitated for a second before reaching out and grasping it. At first there was some resistance, as if some force around the book was preventing her from pulling it towards her. The pull disappeared suddenly, allowing Rey to take possession of the tattered volume.

 

She inspected it momentarily, confident there was no invisible string or other attachments as she ran her hand over the gaudy cover. She flushed slightly.

 

_Of all the books it chose, why did it have to be ‘Seduced by the Pirate’?_

And then another distressing thought flashed, a thought that had been playing on the corners of her mind all day.

_How much has this ghost seen?_

Rey couldn’t stop herself from blushing. She tried to remember all the potentially private and embarrassing things she’d done whilst living in this apartment. No, it was best not to think about all of that now.

 

Looking back up at the patch of air she assumed the spirit would be inhabiting, Rey reached out with one hand and grasped the space.

 

Nothing.

 

Shouldn’t there be a draft or some kind of cold spot or something? How was she supposed to know where it was standing?

 

“Hello?”

 

It took Rey an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the spirit probably wasn’t ignoring her- it probably couldn’t speak. Or she couldn’t hear them? Or maybe ghosts were more like the bodiless orbs like the ones she saw on paranormal TV shows- either way, it was probably rude of her to keep expecting a verbal response.

 

“Ah sorry! Talking is probably complicated between us, right?” She said a bit lamely as she gestured the empty space between her and the supposed spirit.

 

“We should figure out a way to communicate, yes? Can you tap something?”

 

More silence.

 

“I promise I’m not going to freak out again. I just want to know who you are.”

 

More silence followed.

 

Just when Rey was about to give up, a noise similar to the rush of hard particles hitting her granite counter sounded behind her. She spun on the spot. So she _had_ been talking to thin air. Great.

 

She moved towards the kitchenette area and saw that a bag of rice had been opened and spilled haphazardly across the surface. As she drew closer, she caught sight of movement, the rice was being parted and moved as though a finger was dragging itself through the mess.

 

At first it looked like a series of random lines, but as she walked around to look at it from a different angle she could, see it was spelling out a word.

 

No, not a word; a name.

 

B E N.

 

***

 

Ben looked up to see Rey on the opposite side of the counter, staring down at his name. It was oddly intimate to watch her as she traced the path his name made through the rice, her eyes transfixed on the counter top as he observed. It was making him blush.

 

And the relief- the relief of it all was overwhelming.

 

Someone knew he was here. Rey knew he was here. She knew his name.

 

He felt more alive in this very instant than he could ever remember feeling before.

 

During his darkest moments he had worried that he would never be able to make contact with the living, worried that he was doomed to watch over this apartment forever, always separated from its occupants by a veil. Even after he had proved to himself that his actions did affect Rey’s reality, he was worried it wouldn’t be enough for her to notice him. When he was finally strong enough to lift objects up, he was worried Rey would do the logical thing upon seeing something levitate and pack up her things and leave.

_…and he would be alone again._

 

All of that weight was lifted now. She hadn’t run. Rey was here, and she knew he existed.

 

She looked up. She was staring intensely into the blank space about three paces from where he was standing. Ben moved to stand so he would actually be within her line of vision. There was something incredibly endearing about Rey’s inability to judge his location.

 

“Ben? That’s your name?”

 

"Yes," his voice was hoarse from days of misuse. Not that it made much difference to Rey who was unable to hear him.

 

She continued to stare blankly ahead. Then, as if suddenly recognizing Ben’s predicament, she marched off in a determined manner to her office space muttering something about finding some paper.

 

She was back a minute later clutching a large roll, which she proceeded to unfurl. Ben then watched bemused as Rey collected several seemingly unrelated objects around the apartment, including an empty coffee mug, a small potted succulent, and the banana Yankee candle, which she blew out as she moved to place the objects on her coffee table.

 

He watched as she rolled out the paper, weighing it down with the objects. She produced a pen from her back pocket and wrote the words ‘YES’ and ‘NO’. Ben didn’t miss the way her hands shook slightly as she leaned back.

 

“Right, so I’ll ask a question and then you just have to move this pen lid,” she waved the pen cap in her hand in a slightly frantic motion, “towards your answer.”

 

Ben moved forwards and sat down on the opposite sofa, facing Rey. He watched as she carefully placed the pen lid down in a neutral position on the paper.

 

“Ok, first question: You’re Ben?”

 

Ben picked up the pen lid and placed it carefully in the YES circle. He didn’t want to use up all of his energy, which was already starting to wane, but he also wanted to make the lid move in a way Rey could not blame on an uneven table surface or a breeze.

 

“Ok,” she hesitated momentarily, wringing her hands around the lidless pen she still held. Her knuckles were white.

 

“It's nice to meet you, Ben. I'm Rey. But you probably already know that, right?” Rey tried to sound as relaxed possible but she suspected she probably sounded slightly manic, as her voice wavering on the last line.

 

Ben watched as she cleared her throat. She was clearly nervous, and her inability to hide it was oddly adorable.

 

“Have you been here since I moved in?”

 

Ben nudged the cap slightly, leaving it firmly in the YES camp. He looked intently at Rey whose previous attempt at stoicism seems to falter slightly.

 

“Ok, wow.” She cleared her throat nervously.

 

“Um… have you by any chance seen anything you shouldn’t have?”

 

Rey blushed at the thought and waved her hand dramatically in explanation.

 

“Because when it was warmer I used to walk around um… You know? There’s no AC and… you know what, don’t answer that question,” Rey babbled nervously before wringing her hands in embarrassment.

 

Ben moved the lid as fast as it was possible to NO. It wasn’t the complete truth, but he didn’t want her to feel more uncomfortable than she obviously already did.

 

"Oh, ok. Well, that's one less thing to worry about, I guess.”

 

Ben didn’t think she sounded convinced.

 

“Ben, how did you get here? No wait, you can’t answer that. Do you know how you ended up here?”

 

He moved the pen lid in a circle around the NO sphere, watching as she stared mesmerized.

 

“Are you here for a reason? I assume you’re not here to just watch me eat cold Chinese food while I binge an unhealthy amount of Netflix.” Rey looked insecure as she added the last part, wrapping her arms around her waist and fixating on the pen lid as though she could feel his gaze on her.

 

Rey couldn’t imagine how sad and empty her life must seem to an outsider. Even to Ben, who wasn’t in the best position to judge her, being dead and all. She imagined he was probably even lonelier then she was and her heart squeezed. Unless he had some ghost friends- it would be just her luck to have a ghost in her apartment and she turned out to still be the loneliest one of the two.

 

Ben watched her, wishing he had some way to tell her that watching her weird and erratic routine had given him a reason to exist, wanting to let her know that he had literally been devoid of purpose before she moved in. If only he could hold her shaking hands and let her know how much her being here meant to him- but he couldn’t. He had stopped even trying. The feeling of his hand passing straight through her had made him feel hollow and empty inside.

 

He settled on moving the lid to “Yes”

 

“Alright,” Rey said softly. “Is this a special apartment like some kind of boarding home for lost spirits?”

 

She paused on that thought, thinking back to _‘ghost friends’._

 

“Oh my god, are there more of you here?”

 

Ben carefully circled NO twice. This method of communication did not suit Rey's tendency to babble. It also wasn't great for his already flagging energy levels; he wasn’t sure how much more he could take of this today.

 

Rey considered this for a moment and then, in a quieter tone, asked, “So if this place isn’t a special ghost purgatory, and there’s no one else here with you… Are you here because this… because this is where you died?”

 

Her words trailed off to barely more than a whisper.

 

Ben reached out to move the pen but stopped mid-motion.

 

The truth was that he had no idea where he died. He remembered a bright light, and voices and then a nothingness that consumed him so entirely that everything else bled away. All thoughts, all sensations, all memories. And then suddenly he was here.

 

He glanced back up at Rey, who was looking more and more distressed the longer he deliberated. He could see that the thought of someone dying in this apartment disturbed her. He wondered if she, like he, was imagining his lifeless body lying where her shag rug now sat, bleeding out over the bare floorboards.

 

The image was shocking, but even as the thought entered his head he knew it not to be true. He knew it almost as certain as he knew his name was Ben.

 

He had not died here.

 

He moved the lid.

 

***

 

Rey let out a deep sigh of relief. The thought of Ben dying in this apartment- the first true home she’d ever known- affected her more deeply than she would have expected. Such things never worried her much before, but maybe that was because she had been busy worrying about more pressing matters such as having a roof over her head and food in her stomach.

 

Among her rush of emotions was also relief for Ben –a man who though trapped in this apartment, would at least not be trapped in the place he lived out his final moments forever. She couldn’t imagine the loneliness and despair he must have felt during the past five months- or longer. Rey had no idea how long he’d been there before her arrival. Would he even know? Stuck here alone with no way to mark the time, no way to communicate- it made Rey sad just to think about it.

 

Rey could understand loneliness, and she could understand despair, but at least she had always had an end goal. Growing up in a foster home, under the tyrannical thumb of Unkar Plutt- a stout, uncaring man who had used Rey as an unpaid and underfed worker on his scrap yard- she had always had dreams of leaving the UK and escaping to study electrical engineering at MIT. That hadn’t gone exactly to plan- she didn’t get the scholarship she had wanted- but she had been picked up by a scouting program once she finished sixth form at eighteen whom then sent her to their sister branch in New York. She had made it to the US after all.

 

But Ben had none of that ahead of him- he was dead. The despair and hopelessness he must be feeling made Rey’s chest hurt to think about, and she hugged herself tighter, wishing that she was able to give Ben this hug. At least he had her now, and Rey would make sure he wouldn’t feel alone again.

 

Thinking back on their conversation, she voiced the only other viable reason she could come up with for Ben inhabiting her apartment- “Did you live here before you died? Like in this apartment?”

 

The pen lid moved. Yes.

 

Ok, she could deal with that.

 

***

 

Later, as she reflected in the shower, Rey realized she asked some ridiculous questions. What kind of person who gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to talk to a ghost, a real ghost, and doesn’t ask them questions like ‘did your life flash before your eyes before you died?’ or ‘is there an afterlife?’ but instead fixated on ‘have you seen me naked?’ Apparently her. Especially when she knew he definitely had- she had done _a lot_ of walking around naked during the summer heat.

 

Their conversation had ended rather abruptly, with Ben placing the lid on a section of the blueprint that detailed battery storage and low energy mode. After that the lid had stayed stubbornly stationary.

 

Rey assumed Ben was trying to indicate that he was getting tired. Did ghosts sleep? Or disappear? Or was Ben always present and awake at all moments? Did he get bored? She was going to have to write a list to keep track of all her questions so next time she had something better to ask him than ‘have you seen me naked?’

 

Sigh.

 

Toweling her hair and throwing on some pajamas- she'd never walk around here naked again- she walked back into the living room to make an attempt at cleaning up the mess they had made earlier.

 

Looking down at the coffee table she noticed that in her haste to find a piece of paper for her makeshift Ouija board she'd thoughtlessly picked up one of the most recent blueprints of the phone prototype. Now it had her rushed handwriting all over the enlarged cross-section of the phone's upper body. She sighed.

 

Moving the pen lid Ben and she had used as a place marker she rolled the plans back up. It wasn’t the end of the world- it was only a copy of the original (which was housed at work) anyway- she could always get another one made (even though it was sure to produce some sort of snooty comment about Rey’s lack of organization from Mitaka).

 

Her eyes skimmed the familiar lines and curves of the diagram, allowing her mind to wander for the first time today back to her current work dilemma- the flexible phone problem- which had seemed rather insignificant in light of the current supernatural situation she was facing.

 

Not that Ben was a problem- he wasn’t, of course. He was simply an unexpected roommate, was all.

 

Her gaze focused on an unfamiliar rectangle amongst the jumble of hardware Rey knew almost as well as the back of her own hand. Even in the oversized illustration, it was minuscule, tucked beside the vibrator module and the main motherboard. Rey let her fingers trace its alien lines. It was entirely unlabeled, and Rey knew it wasn't something that had been in the previous plans.

_It must be some sort of new feature Snoke wants to add; I did miss most of today’s meeting after all._ Rey told herself, even as a nagging thought added- _but these blueprints were drawn up last week, not today, and I’ve been to every design meeting since._

 

Carefully rolling up the plan, Rey decided some further investigation was required- on both the phone and Ben, know that she though about it. There had to be some way to find out who lived here before her- perhaps some kind of occupancy records or at least someone in this apartment block that remembered the last person who’d lived here.

 

Rey sighed.

 

Maybe it was finally time for her to introduce herself to her neighbors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we are going to have to rearrange the updating schedule so that it falls on Sunday because I always seem to be a day late atm, sorrrrrry! 
> 
> I meant to say this on my last update but I cannot thank you guys enough for all the comments, kudos and subscriptions- they honestly make my week. I never expected this kind of response- to my first piece of fanfiction I've ever written! It's been amazing. Thank you!!!!


	4. he holds tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey meets the neighbors!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again a massive thanks to vnpmeh for betaing this chapter for me!

__

 

_This is the ghost of yesterday;_

_he holds tomorrow in his hand,_

_but when you reach for it_

_he snatches it away—_

\- Skeptical Inquiry, Dustin Down

 

 

Living with a ghost was less of an issue than Rey expected it to be. Ben was a pretty considerate roommate, all things considered. He continued to water the plants, and feed BB-8 but now he also tidied things away for Rey whilst she was at work. He was now also helping her with the washing up, and other small things that he hadn’t been able to do before without giving the you-have-a-ghost-in-your-apartment game away.

 

Last week, Ben had painstakingly reorganized her entire bookshelf by author and year of publication. It had taken him a few days because, as Rey now understood, Ben only had so much daily energy to use up before moving objects became impossible for him.

 

The more scientific side of Rey’s mind had been trying for the past two weeks to calculate the correlation between Ben’s depleted strength and the numerous variables, such as the weight of the object, and the force needed to move said object, and how all of this affected Ben’s energy reserves- if it did at all. She now suspected that the heavier the object was, the faster he would tire but she didn’t have sufficient evidence to really prove her theory yet.

 

One thing that had improved dramatically between the pair was communication. Rey had bought a pack of ‘write your own fridge poetry’ magnets home two days after their first conversation, which finally allowed Ben to construct whole sentences to answer her many questions- and had also eventually led to many exchanges about Rey’s day, her friends, and news of the outside world.

 

Ben was inquisitive on a whole manner of subjects, from politics to the weather. Rey suspected he was trying to find familiarities between what he remembered and what was going on currently, and then trying to work out how long he’d been dead. They never talked about Ben’s death. It really was the elephant in the room, lying unspoken between them.

 

Thinking back on her reaction to the possibility that Ben had died this apartment, Rey felt that maybe their lack of discussion around the _(death)_ word was more for her sake than his.

 

The only thing that Rey had actually had any problems with these last two weeks was the unexpectedly difficult search for Ben’s full identity.

 

First off, she had contacted the landlord who told her he couldn't discuss past tenants due to confidentiality but did let her know the flat had only been empty a week between when the last tenant moved out and when she moved in. The whole exchange had left Rey with more questions then answers.

 

There was always the chance someone continued paying rent for Ben after he died. She assumed someone must have collected his things at some point so, despite the week between the last tenancy and hers, she was unwilling to take this as a real breakthrough.

 

First of all, Rey couldn’t even be sure Ben was actually the last tenant. She had brought this up last week and Ben had reaffirmed that the first person he could remember living here was her, but Rey wasn’t too sure how much trust she should place in his memory- which was pretty much blank. Who was to say he hadn’t just forgotten the last tenant?

 

Then she had looked at New York City death records, but it turned out that only knowing the first name of the deceased wasn’t enough sufficient information to get her anywhere.

 

Googling Ben’s name along with her address had also pulled no relevant results.

 

So then she had started visiting every neighbor on her floor- of which there were four.

 

The first neighbor she visited, a burly man in 4B who always left his mailbox overflowing, waved her away with a grumbled: "I never even saw the guy" and a door to her face. Rey wasn’t too discouraged after this exchange; after all, she'd never seen 4B so he was clearly just a recluse. She truly believed that at least one person must have at least seen Ben before.

 

It turned out she was wrong.

 

The second neighbor she visited, 4A with the red door, turned out to be a kind elderly man named Lor San Tekka. He informed her he had never seen Ben in the flesh but had heard the last tenant opening his door late at night and early in the morning. Unfortunately for Rey, he then proceeded to tell her his whole life story, which did sound rather interesting, but Rey had to excuse herself after the first half or she was going to be late for work. She made a mental note to pop back round when she had time.

 

She had tried the third neighbor, 4E, at varying times during the last week but they never seemed to be in. That or they were ignoring her. Eventually, she managed to corner them as they left early one Monday morning. To Rey's surprise, her neighbor to the right was a girl who looked to be about the same age as her. Her name was Connix, she was an art student and she seemed both amused and perplexed about what could possibly be important enough to be ambushed by a pajama-clad Rey at seven am. Unfortunately, she had only moved in three months ago, two months after Rey, so she definitely never had the opportunity to meet Ben.

 

Rey had saved the worst for last. The only neighbour she had actually met before was McLeer, who lived in 4D- _as in D for dick_.

 

He was a completely repulsive man with no sense of personal hygiene or personal space. Rey had had the displeasure of meeting him when she moved in when he crept up behind her as she bent over a box in the hallway. She was pretty sure he was about to feel her up but she had snapped back up fast enough to disorientate him with a hair flip to his face. Poe had given him a ‘talking to’. She wasn’t sure what had been discussed but he hadn’t bothered her since. And now she was going to voluntarily bother him- _great idea, Rey._

 

With her keys in one hand and her other in her pocket holding her phone, just in case, she knocked.

 

McLeer (not his actual name, which was definitely McSomething, had been nicknamed by Rose after his tendency to let his eyes _stray_ ) opened his door, emerging in a cloud of smoke.

 

_‘Yep, definitely weed. That explains the box of captain crunch he’s eating dry.’_ Rey thought to herself.

 

He leaned on the doorframe, tilting towards Rey as he looked her over once and then took a handful of cereal and stuffed it in his mouth in a way that felt supremely uncomfortable.

 

_Was that supposed to be sexy?_

 

“What can I do for you?” He asked around the mouthful.

 

“Did you ever see the guy who lived in my apartment before me?” Rey leaned back as far as she could without actually stepping away from him.

 

“Yeah, I never saw him. He was quiet though, never had any problems.”

 

He then gave Rey a look, which clearly conveyed that he felt he did have noise problems with her. She flushed. It was probably the singing.  _Great._ Though it wasn’t like she couldn’t hear the shooting sound effect from one of the games he played into the night… not that she was going to bring that up now.

 

“Do you remember what his name was?”

 

She was still trying to ascertain whether Ben was actually the previous tenant, or if there had been someone else between them .

 

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I got some of his post by mistake once. It was addressed to a weird name- what was it again?”

 

He knocked rhythmically on the doorframe as he tried to jog his memory.

 

“It was like some kind of pretentious rock star name- like Renlo Ley or Ringo Ren- no I think it was Rango Len! Yeah, Rango Len, that was it.” He smiled and self congratulated himself with another handful of cereal.

 

Rey stared at him in disbelief.

 

“Rango Len? You’re sure?”

_Ok, he is definitely stoned._

 

“I told you it was a weird name, man, what can I say?”

 

"Well, thanks for all your help."

 

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. And if you need anything else” he leaned further forward, licking his lips in the most grotesque version of an overture Rey had ever had to endure “just let me know.”

 

“Right. Bye.” Rey turned on the spot as fast as she could.

 

He took one last leering glance at Rey’s chest, and then when she turned to walk away, let out a loud inhale. She knew exactly where his eyes were trailing, but she didn’t look back.

 

***

 

Ben was waiting for her when she returned from her meeting with McLeer. She spotted the magnetic tiles moving around the front of the fridge as she opened the front door.

 

Closing the door behind her, she walked forward to read Ben’s message.

 

**HE DIDN’T KNOW ME?**

 

Rey sighed and put her keys down on the counter.

 

“Unless your name was Rango Len, then no, he didn’t.”

 

They had discussed the other neighbors at length after each of the meetings, clasping at every small piece of information- even though there was so little to dissect.

 

“Ben, I know it seems hopeless but I’m not going to give up. We are going to find out who you are. I promise.”

 

Rey watched with sad eyes as the tiles rearranged again.

 

**I THINK I WAS ALWAYS ALONE**

The words hit her like a physical blow. Had she not always felt that way before being lucky enough to meet Rose, Jessika, and Poe? Even before Ben made himself known to her, she had started reverting to isolating herself; reading and eating copious amounts of comfort food.

 

Growing up, she was abandoned by her parents, left in a park at the age of three, and then passed around various forms of social care until she was five. Then she had been fostered by Unkar Plutt who thought that the idea of her having friends was a bad idea… just in case someone realized how she was being mistreated. She was homeschooled and didn’t attend primary or high school. For a long time, Rey thought Unkar’s abuse of her was the norm, having no other friends to compare herself to.

 

After she became too old for Plutt to control, she left and attended a local sixth form college before getting her first job. It had always been hard for her to socialize, and she wondered if her childhood had left her unable to form normal relationships.

 

It was impossible to shake that kind of bone-deep loneliness. It was lodged somewhere deep within her, always ready to strike whenever she least expected it.

 

And even though it was cruel, the thought that someone- Ben- had been out there, just as lonely as she had been warmed some part of her.

 

She opened her mouth to speak, and realized her eyes were welling up.

 

She reached up to dab them with her sleeve and turned away from Ben as she announced; “There has to be someone out there who knows who you are. And I _am_ going to find them”.

 

***

 

Ben watched Rey as she held back tears, actual tears, and wondered if this was the first time anyone had cried for him. No- there had been that woman, the one who came to collect all of his stuff. Rey’s emotions felt so raw.

 

She had become completely obsessed with this search for information on him, and though he was appreciative, his own curiosity only went so far. At the end of the day, he was dead. What more could be done?

 

There was also the issue of his memory.

 

His memory played him up more and more every day. He had started to remember small, inconsequential things like swimming somewhere cold and the feeling of being lifted up into the air as a child.

 

There was also muscle memory coming back to him. He remembered a series of taps that his right thumb would make against his fingers repeatedly, his thumb hitting slightly different places against his pointer finger and ones underneath on each hit.

 

He knew he should be mentioning these things to Rey, in the interest of transparency, but what could she really do with a few brief childhood memories and a series of taps he couldn’t even show her. It seemed pointless- and this way at least she would let her investigation run its course and inevitably die out when she realized there was nothing more to learn about him.

 

“Well, I’m off to work now. I’ll be back around ten tonight.”

 

Rey picked up her keys from the counter and wrapped her scarf around her neck tightly.

 

Ben rearranged the magnets until it read;

 

**SO LATE?**

“Yeah, I’m having trouble fitting extra hardware into this design. I don’t want to bore you, it’s really not that interesting. It’s just that Snoke wants to see it by next week and I’m nowhere near getting it done.”

 

At the sound of that word- Snoke- something snapped inside his head. The feeling was disorientating like he was descending down a familiar staircase only to find it had a step too many. His mind was faltering, there had been a spark of recognition, the sense that he knew something about this but then he had been unable to find that memory. The file inside his mind had been erased. He looked around the apartment; there was something, something here that-

 

The door slammed, breaking him out of his trance. The thread of thought had been completely lost.

 

He turned back to the kitchenette. Maybe today would be a good day to start organizing Rey’s spice cupboard.

 

***

 

The daily commute to work reminded Rey of her other current predicament- the mysteriously added chip on the blueprint she'd drawn all over by mistake.

 

She came in to work that first day after noticing the blip on the blueprint fully intending on asking Mitaka about it, but something had stopped her. Probably because of the awful mood he had been in that morning, but Rey would rather think it was a subconscious realization that this might be more serious then she had first thought.

 

The replacement blueprint she had printed out confirmed her initial suspicions- and, although the blueprint was dated as the same date to the one she had used to converse with Ben on, it was notably missing the small chip. She could find no other blueprint with the chip on it, nor any files on what it could be.

 

When had her life become this complicated? First, there was a ghost in her apartment, and now her workplace seemed to be harboring some kind of secret technology they didn’t want their workers to know about.

 

Of course, there was also the chance that it had all been a mistake, a draft of the blueprint that wasn’t the finalized version, or maybe it was a prototype piece of hardware that the higher-ups had decided they didn’t want anymore and it had been taken out.

 

But her inquisitive mind couldn’t let it go. It didn’t make sense that something was taken out of the design and no one informed her team about it. That’s what she was employed to do- to design the inside of this phone.

 

For these reasons, Rey said nothing about her worries, biding her time and waiting for the day when she could finally try and access the blueprints in Hux’s office- if anyone had clearance on this information, it was him.

 

She hadn’t told Ben about the discovery yet, though he was quickly becoming her confidante in nearly all things. Despite the unusual method of communication, she felt comfortable with Ben, like she could trust him- and trust wasn’t a thing Rey gave away easily. If Rey was being entirely honest she really enjoyed having someone to come home to every day after work, someone who would miss her if she weren’t there.

 

In many ways she needed Ben as much as he needed her.

 

Which is why she felt bad about the omission but she knew Ben would worry, and she wouldn’t be talked out of this now- her decision had been made. And her day had finally come.

 

Rey had started to suspect that Hux was purposely leaving the office ridiculously late so that she, or anyone else, couldn’t get a shot at getting into his office when it was empty- but she knew that eventually even a man like Hux would have to have some kind of social event that would force him to leave early.

 

Today, Hux left the office at half nine. She watched as he walked past her shared office space, heading to the elevator bank with his briefcase and coat on, and then waited an extra half an hour before getting up and walking confidently over to Hux’s office door. The only people left on this floor were custodial staff, and they had no idea that Rey wasn’t supposed to be in Hux’s office. She picked up a mop from an unattended bucket as she approached the office.

 

The door opened without resistance. This whole plan really relied on one of two things- that either Hux was arrogant enough not to lock his filing cabinet, or that one of her keys would fit the lock.

 

As she entered the room she used the mop to turn the security camera, which was positioned to look out diagonally across the office, so that it now faced the wall. Rey hoped no one would want to check the footage- and if they did she had an excuse; she needed the latest working prototype which was housed nightly in Hux’s office.

 

And besides, what would they do if she were caught? Fire her? She was pretty close to quitting anyway, so they could do their worst.

 

She made her way over to the filing cabinet and set to work with her ring of keys.

 

She had used about half the keys when the door opened behind her.

 

_“What are you doing?!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, Sunday is definitely the new update day... thanks for being patient with me! 
> 
> The magnetic poetry pieces were something I always had in the house when I was a child, but I don't know if they are a universal thing so I've included a picture of them for reference in the aesthetic pic at the top! Did anyone else have these? I can imagine them being pretty handy if your roommate was a ghost!
> 
> again thanks for all the comments and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for getting this far! This is literally my first time writing fanfiction ever, so comments will really help me improve (and will make me v happy).
> 
> I have the first three chapters written already- they get longer, don't worry- and I hope to uploading every Saturday night from here on out.


End file.
